Traumatic events can cause PTSD, a prevalent mental illness. It causes flashbacks, anxiety, negative thoughts, hypervigilance, and more. Talk therapy is one of the major PTSD treatments in Dallas.
What is PTSD?
People can get PTSD after going through a stressful event. Traumatic events can be life-threatening or harm your physical, emotional, or spiritual health. PTSD affects all ages. PTSD causes intense and intrusive thoughts and sensations that last long after the event. Stress responses in PTSD include:
- Anxiety, depression, and feelings of guilt or shame.
- Having dreams or flashbacks.
- Avoid trauma-related places and activities.
- These symptoms induce stress and impair daily life.
Symptoms of PTSD
Four categories of PTSD symptoms exist. Different symptoms vary in severity. Contact with the PTSD treatment center in Dallas incase of feeling any symptoms from following:
- Intrusion: repetitive, involuntary memories, upsetting nightmares, or horrific flashbacks. Flashbacks can be so vivid that people feel like they’re experiencing or seeing the trauma.
- Avoidance: Doing so may involve avoiding people, places, activities, objects, and situations that bring back terrible memories. People may strive to forget the trauma. They may not discuss what happened or how they feel.
- Changes in cognition and mood: inability to remember important aspects of the traumatic event; negative thoughts and feelings leading to ongoing and distorted beliefs about oneself or others. (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted”); inaccurate views about the event’s source or effects, leading to self- or other-blame; persistent fear, horror, rage, guilt, or shame; decreased interest in previously loved activities; a feeling
- How you react and get aroused changes: Being impatient and angry, acting recklessly or self-destructively, being overly cautious and suspicious, being easily startled, and having trouble sleeping or focusing are all examples of arousal and reactive symptoms.
What is a Trauma?
Trauma is something that endangers your life or safety. It can be long-term trauma like war or torture, not just a vehicle accident. You can observe trauma too. Learning about a terrible event involving a loved one may lead to PTSD. Traumatic incidents can include:
- Car accidents are serious.
- Emergency illness or injury.
- War and battle.
- Tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, and floods.
- Physical assault.
- Verbal abuse.
- Abuse of sexuality.
- Bullying.
- Unexpected death of a loved one.
Types of PTSD
Two conditions resemble PTSD:
- Acute stress: A traumatic experience can cause this short-term mental health disorder within a month. PTSD symptoms may persist for longer than four weeks.
- CPTSD: Complex PTSD Chronic trauma can cause this mental illness. Child physical or sexual abuse, domestic violence, and war are chronic traumas. PTSD symptoms and substantial challenges with emotion control, self-esteem, and relationships are typical of PTSD.
Treatments for PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder treatment helps restore control. Psychotherapy is the main treatment, occasionally with medicines. TMS therapy in Dallas also has been used. These treatments together can ease symptoms by:
- Teaching you symptom management skills
- Facilitating positive self-image and learning to handle the recurrence of symptoms.
- Treating trauma-related issues like depression, anxiety, and substance abuse
- You don’t have to manage PTSD alone.
Psychotherapy
PTSD can be treated in children and adults with various psychotherapies, or talk therapies. Psychotherapies for PTSD treatment in Dallas include:
- Cognitive treatment: This talk therapy helps you identify cognitive patterns that are keeping you stuck, such as negative self-image and the danger of catastrophic events. PTSD treatment generally includes cognitive and exposure therapy.
- Exposure therapy: This behavioral therapy helps you safely face scary situations and memories to learn to manage. Flashbacks and nightmares benefit from exposure therapy. Virtual reality applications let you relive tragedy.
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: Exposure treatment and guided eye movements in EMDR help you process and adjust your reaction to distressing memories.
Inoculation Stress Training
Types of CBT include SIT. Do it alone or with others. You needn’t describe what happened. Changes in event stress management are the focus. Relaxing your mind and body with massage, breathing, and other methods may help you stop negative thoughts. After three months, you should be able to reduce stress.
Medications
PTSD sufferers’ brains process “threats” differently due to a neurotransmitter imbalance. They quickly elicit “fight or flight” responses, making you tense. Trying to shut that down can make you emotionally frigid. Memories, nightmares, and flashbacks are reduced by medication. They can also make you happier and more “normal” again.
Several medicines alter fear and anxiety brain chemistry. SSRIs and SNRIs, such as fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), and venlafaxine (Effexor), are typically initial drugs prescribed by doctors. The FDA only approves paroxetine and sertraline for PTSD.
PTSD Complications
The following disorders are common in PTSD patients and can worsen symptoms:
- Mood issues.
- Anxious disorders.
- Neurological issues, including dementia.
- Disorders involving alcohol and drugs.
- PTSD increases suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Can PTSD be Avoided?
You can’t always prevent trauma. However, some research suggests that some steps may prevent PTSD later. These are “protective factors”:
- Seeking assistance from friends and family following the occurrence. This provides security.
- Post-traumatic support group membership.
- Becoming confident in your actions is in peril.
- Healthy post-traumatic coping.
- Acting and responding well despite fear.
- Helping others, especially after a natural disaster or significant trauma.
PTSD Causes & Risks
Traumatic situations affect everyone differently. Each person handles fear, stress, and traumatic threats differently. Thus, not all trauma victims get PTSD. After trauma, the assistance you receive from friends, family, and professionals may affect whether you develop PTSD and how severe its symptoms are.
Events that may trigger PTSD include:
- Military conflict
- Attack or threat of sexual harassment
- Beating, kidnapping, or robbery are some physical violence concerns.
- Abuse as a child
- Acts of terrorism
- A plane crash, car collapse or house fire
- A storm, flood, wildfire, or some other terrible natural event
Conclusion
Research shows that changes in the brain caused by PTSD may lead to memory loss, worry, and trouble managing stress. Post-traumatic stress disorder can happen after being sexually assaulted or in battle. If you’re having nightmares, flashbacks, or depression or agitation for more than a month following the event, see a doctor. Various PTSD treatments in Dallas like conversation therapies are effective.